ISJ welcomes submission of the 5th periodic CRC report by Pakistan

The Institute for Social Justice (ISJ) has welcomed submission of the fifth periodic by Pakistan to the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The Committee received the report on 7th January 2015 after lapse of more than two years to the deadline. The report was due on 11 December 2012.
The report is full with new and old information (or repetition of the information) but the major issue in the report is, it lacks detailed information on various issues that the Committee on the Rights of the Child had recommended Pakistan to provide. It shows Pakistan’s institutions do not have capacity to monitor and gather information. The Committee had also urged Pakistan to take initiatives/measures in all areas of child rights which includes legislative, administrative, financial, technical and so on but Pakistan shows little progress in the report because children has never been priority of the governments in Pakistan. However, the National Commission for Child Welfare & Development (NCCWD)- a helpless, non-statutory body, lacking competence- is slowly and sluggishly working on generic child rights agenda without any plan of action.
The fifth report by Pakistan offers some of the initiatives taken by the government, however, it ignores a large number of initiatives taken by the civil society organizations which should have been made part of the report. However, the report appears to be UN agencies data and lack proper referencing.
The ISJ is also concerned about the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s reluctance to share the fifth report with the public and civil society organizations. The report had been submitted in January 2015 which has been put on website but the Committee has not published any press statement on it.
The ISJ urged the Office of High Commissioner of Human Rights and the Committee on the Rights of the Child to immediately issues a press release/s on the matter and invite civil society organizations to review the report from now on, so that a constructive environment or cycle should start.
The fifth report report can be reviewed at http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/TBSearch.aspx?Lang=en&TreatyID=5&TreatyID=10&TreatyID=11&DocTypeID=29&DocTypeCategoryID=4